Variations on the Theme of Love
by satinskies27
Summary: A series of one-shot character pairings implied, imagined, or (gasp) actually exist. Stories about the different kinds of love that exist. So far: Neville/Luna, Pansy/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Dean/Luna, Remus/Lily, Remus/Sirius
1. Author's Note

Variations on the Theme of Love

**Author's Note**

A series of one-shot character pairings implied, imagined, or (gasp) actually exist. So far: Neville/Luna, Pansy/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Dean/Luna, Remus/Lily, Remus/Sirius

These are stories about different kinds of love that exist: romantic love, infatuation, obsession, familial love, and maybe even friendship.

I must append a disclaimer here – this is my first foray into fanfiction, and into writing stories in general, so please forgive the inevitably fluffy and cringe-worthy moments. The stories won't be all that brilliant or have inspired plots and wicked dialogues, but I'm hoping to just enjoy the process and get better at this (and maybe cure my insomnia in the process).

One can only hope.


	2. Pansy x Draco

**Pansy x Draco**

Draco Malfoy sweeps down the dungeon corridors, Crabbe and Goyle hard on his heels.

"Slow down, Draco," they pant.

"You need more exercise," he says snidely, and walks faster.

Crabbe and Goyle look at each other, confused. The Malfoys did not run. But if they didn't know better, they might think this one was running away.

"Oh Dracoooo…." the cooing presses ever closer. "Where are youuuuuu…."

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" he ducks into a nearby alcove, and sinks into the blessed darkness. Bliss, for all of 20 seconds. Then his quiet is torn asunder.

"There you are!" He chokes on a face-full of lavender scented – lavender-drowned, if he was to be perfectly honest – robes as Pansy Parkinson descends on him with a squeal.

He begins to cough hackingly in a most undignified manner. "Are you alright?" her voice is all shrill concern. He waves her away.

"Oh Drakey, do you have any idea how much I missed you over Christmas break? I got you the most darling present! …."

_Yeah, if only you would give me my heart's desire and leave me alone._

Draco Malfoy wrinkles his nose and straightens his robes. He glares at his supposed friends, standing behind the still nattering girl – trying to look innocent and failing miserably. _Traitors_, he mouths at them. Vincent shrugs. At least Gregory has the grace to look sheepish.

"… and we'll be going for tea at Madam Puddifoot's this Hogsmeade weekend!"

… _and I have a serious stalker problem._

Draco scowls. He mutters through clenched teeth. "Pansy, I have a lot of work to do."

"What did you say, Drakey?" She cups her ear and leans forward.

"I said, I have a lot of work to do." He takes a small step back.

"But you always say that," she pouts.

"I'm a very busy person. Leave me alone. Please."

"But I miss you so much! We haven't gone out in absolutely ages!"

"Precisely."

"Not since the Yule Ball in fourth year!"

"Exactly."

Their eyes lock. He matches her, glare for glare.

"Well, you'll come round one day, you'll see!" She flounces off. He continues to glare at her retreating back, rubbing away the beginnings of a massive headache.

* * *

Later in class…

_Pansy & Draco_, Pansy writes in curlicues, and draws a bright pink heart around their names.

Draco happens to glance over her shoulder. He shudders, rubbing his eyes as if to scour the sight from his vision.

Pansy smiles, oblivious. _Pansy Malfoy_. It had a nice ring to it.


	3. Neville x Luna

**Neville x Luna**

"You hold it like this, and wave it like this."

"Like this?"

"No, like this."

"?"

Unthinking, Neville grabs Luna's hand, the hand holding her wand, and swishes it to demonstrate.

Then he pauses. He blushes. They are so close he can almost taste her scent: she smells of lilies and moonlight and grass after rain. He lets go of her hand and beats a hasty retreat.

"Oh look, Nargles! They must really like you." Luna beams, pointing at a spot behind his ear. She blows at it, her breath light and soft as a kiss. He shivers, though whether it is from pleasure or the winter chill, he does not know.

"Y-y-you should t-t-try again," he stutters.

"Expecto patronum," she says. Her enunciation is perfect, her wand movement precise, but there is only a puff of white smoke.

Dean and Seamus are waiting impatiently for his help, but he lingers on.

"It's better, do try again, L-Luna," he whispers.

Luna frowns, her face a mixture of warring emotions. Then her face clears, as if she has made a difficult decision. A wand is placed in his hand, and lily-white fingers wrap tightly around his.

"Expecto patronum!" she declares again.

The Room of Requirement hushes as the students turn to watch the curious creature gambol around the strange couple. This time, he does not let go.


	4. Ron x Hermione

**Hermione x Ron**

Hermione Granger likes to make lists.

She has shopping lists and to-do lists, lists of homework and birthdates, books she has read and books she has not and books that she wishes she had.

Hermione Granger has a very comprehensive list of reasons why she likes Ron Weasley. She wrote it all out, once, between Potions homework and Charms essays in sixth year. Ron Weasley: A Very Annotated Essay. She thinks it might be wedged in between a History of Magic book at the bottom of her trunk, or in a stack of school essays gathering dust at home. But she doesn't need it, now. She has taken it out so often that she can recite it by heart.

It has an oddly calming effect. She needs that, today of all days; she needs calm and peace and assurance. So, fixing her hair in the Burrow one hour before her wedding to Ron, she begins once more –

She likes his shy smile; the endearing way he cocks his head to the side when he is puzzled (which is often); how his ears turn red when he is embarrassed (which is even more often). She likes how he is sweet and funny and loyal all at once, how he stutters sometimes when he talks to her, how he loves her so much till it hurts. She likes how he kisses her on her forehead when he thinks she's asleep, how he holds her tight until her sobbing stills. When he holds her in his arms, he looks at her with wonder and awe and disbelief, as if he cannot quite believe she is real. Their first kiss, tasting of sweat and desperation and unshed tears as they stood on the brink of the war.

She likes his family, all loud and boisterous and oh so friendly. Molly showers her with food and affection, Arthur with kind attention, Ginny and the boys with friendship and easy banter. She likes Christmas at his home. She feels welcome – no, at home, like she _belongs_ – the way she hasn't felt since Hogwarts, since her parents vanished into Australia.

She likes him, certainly, for all the times he has risked his life to save hers. The way he radiates adoration, like how her dad smiles at her mom: like she is the only sun in his universe. His beatific smile when he proposed; the way his voice cracked when he said 'wife'.

She pauses to frown at her reflection in the mirror, and to tug at an unruly strand of hair and sigh.

He is safe and familiar and uncomplicated and here, and he loves her, so, so much. That should be enough.

But there is always a traitorous voice she cannot quite quell.

When she thinks of Ron, she thinks of holding hands across the kitchen table, him holding her waist while she cooks dinner. They will sit in companionable silence in the mornings, she absorbed in books, he in the Daily Prophet, and she will reply a distracted "Mmhmm" to his outraged declarations. They will have two children, she thinks, and she will name them Rose and Hugo; solid, dependable names. He will play Quidditch with them while she teaches them how to read and write. And when the children go to Hogwarts, the silence will descend again.

There is a knock on her door. "Hermione? Do you need help?" Harry. Kind Harry, worried Harry, concerned Harry; brave, brave Harry. Harry who broke up with Ginny because he knew they would not work out, knew that his reasons for love were not enough.

Hermione Granger is smart and good and brave, but sometimes she is not brave enough.

When she was in fifth year, sixteen and studious and all alone, she overheard a group of girls gossiping in the Common Room while she worked on her essay. Their names escape her now, but their words are etched into her consciousness. A simple game of would you rather: _would you rather marry someone you love or someone who loves you? _Her ears burn with the memory. She shuts it away. Since the War, she has learned to shut unpleasant things away.

The last item on her foot-long list, the only item crossed out and tear-splotched and shut away: she likes him because he loves her.

When she closes her eyes, she can see the hurt in his as she turns away. She cannot bear to see his tears fall. But maybe, maybe he will have passion enough for both of them.

"Hermione? Are you alright?" Harry persists.

Hermione gives herself a mental shake. She tells herself sternly that it is merely pre-wedding jitters and she has read enough to know not to fall prey to them. She brushes away the tears that have gathered at the edges of her eyes, and takes a deep breath.

"Yes. I'm r-r-ready," her voice is watery but determined.

Hermione Granger opens the door and walks into the rest of her life.


	5. Dean x Luna

**Dean x Luna**

When Dean Thomas opens his eyes, everything is different. Things have broken and not quite healed. The world has spun round and round while he was asleep and now everything is different and yet the same.

He sits up and finds himself in Shell Cottage, Bill and Fleur Weasley smiling sadly down at the bed next to his. Bill is murmuring into Fleur's ear. Fleur is stroking the flaxen hair of a girl whose face he cannot see.

When Bill and Fleur leave, he glances at the next bed and sees the wan face and closed eyes of Luna Lovegood. She has been ill for days, it seems, and the potions aren't working at all.

He takes it upon himself to sponge away the fever that does not break.

Once he was part of the derisive laughter, the whispers that trailed the strange girl and her strange, strange songs. Now, he doesn't know why but he aches to see her smile once more.

* * *

When he closes his eyes, he dreams of Malfoy Manor again. He sees her, all torn clothes and dirt-streaked hair, looking so lost and broken his heart aches. He sees them huddling together in the dark, he whispering empty comfort into her shell-like ear, her holding his trembling hand. Strange, how bonds forged in war and filth and nightmares still bind him tight – several times during the night, he wakes, sweat-drenched and shivering and calling Luna's name.

When he awakes in the morning, she has taken a turn for the worse. She looks so small and vulnerable, like a porcelain doll; ethereal, not quite of this world and fading fast. There is a faint stirring – _of distress? concern? empathy?_ – in his chest. The discomfort settles deep in his bones.

He has an inexplicable urge to hold her close and not let go. Instead, he settles for giving her a chaste kiss her on the forehead.

Then he closes his eyes and for the first time in many years, begins to pray.

* * *

After two days, her fever breaks. He releases a breath he hasn't known he was holding. The knot in his heart loosens a little.

* * *

A week later, Luna is well enough to walk. Then she starts to hum and the music begins once more. Snatches and broken refrains trail her from the living room to the bedroom to the kitchen. Arpeggios and trills and the odd phrase swirl around her like her odd earrings and curious scarves. The house is bursting with music.

Even Fleur begins to hum the song. They watch, wide-eyed and smiling, as Bill catches Fleur and spins her around the room and bows with a flourish. War is encroaching around them. He can see it in their bent backs and gaunt faces and tired eyes. But now, for the present, they are strong and golden and deliriously happy, their sorrows carried away by Luna's music.

It is soft and slow and sweet in parts, then wild and raging in others. It sounds like sunlight and rain-soaked days, like whispering winds and flowing rivers, like the tempest and the roar of the sea. It is fluid: the dark before dawn, the calm before the storm. It is joy and melancholy and wistfulness and a tangle of emotions he cannot quite identify. He feels like it is so familiar that he should know it. He dreams of its name, poised on the tip of his tongue. He wakes up wondering.

"What are you humming?"

"Hmm?"

"The song you keep singing, that keeps changing but sounds the same."

She looks at him, straight at him for the first time. It is unnerving how she seems to be looking into his soul. "I thought you'd never ask," she says, pausing to hum a few more snatches of the melody. "It was my mother's song. She used to sing it to me."

"Its called 'Variations on the theme of love'."

He smiles.

"It's a beautiful song; the Nargles love it."

His smile does not waver.

* * *

The next day, they venture outside to gather seashells. The Crumple-Horned Snorkack might like seashells, he thinks, and he might just like her too.

* * *

And so the days pass with the two of them lost in their own world. Everyone else flickers like shadows and ghosts on the periphery.

The war and Voldemort and Hogwarts is a distant memory that keeps intruding into their idyll, and when he closes his eyes she is lying broken before him, her eyes sightless and unseeing, blood trickling down her lips. He suppresses a shudder.

He wants a way for this to last forever. He doesn't want this time to ever end.

He is not sure how, not sure even of him and her; but then, he has learned that he cannot be sure of anything at all.

* * *

"I want to draw you," he tells her after a few more days.

The thought has actually been flitting in his head for days. She is so special and ethereal and he doesn't think he can capture her on paper at all. But he wants to try anyway.

When he tries to explain all this to her, it comes out in a confused jumble. She smiles serenely and tells him to watch out for the Wrackspurts. They are making his thoughts fuzzy, she says.

But she lets him paint her anyway.

She even sings for him while he paints for her.

When he is done, he holds up the painting and it catches the dying rays of the setting sun just then. It is a beautiful portrait of Shell Cottage and him and her. A moment of happiness frozen in time. The colours are dazzling; the figures lifelike. But he is most pleased with the way Luna looks: almost like the real Luna, her features softened by tender brushstrokes.

She studies the picture and smiles.

"Thank you," she says simply, and there is a world of words and emotions in her liquid eyes.

Then she stands on tiptoe. He stills, the breath caught in his chest, hoping but not quite daring to hope. She leans in and gives him a chaste kiss on his cheek.

The sky is rapidly darkening, and he is glad that it is too dark for her to see him blush.

"Let's go home," he holds out his hand, his voice barely hiding his grin. Tiny, delicate fingers interlace with his. He holds them tight and begins to hum.


	6. Sirius x Remus

**Remus x Sirius**

Everyone knew Sirius Black loved Remus Lupin. Everyone except Sirius Black himself.

The whole of Hogwarts was in on the secret. The Ravenclaws would give them knowing smiles; the Slytherins would nudge each other and whisper mockingly in the corridors; the Hufflepuffs would giggle and point; and the Gryffindors would roll their eyes and say that that was so yesterday's news.

Everyone knew Sirius Black loved Remus Lupin. Everyone except Sirius Black himself.

Even the staff would smile fondly at them, even though the Marauders meant headaches and detention and more trouble. Each month, when Sirius arrived when the hospital wing was closed with James and Peter at his heels, Madam Pomfrey would cluck at them but let them through. If Sirius made a little too much noise in the library, Madam Pince would only see a boy trying to cheer his small, scruffy best friend up, and turn the other way. Flitwick beamed and called them "dear boys" on occasion. Even McGonagall graced them with tolerant – albeit somewhat strained – smiles. Dumbledore twinkled as always, but perhaps a little more.

It was obvious, really. Obvious to everyone except Sirius Black.

It was in the touches that lasted a little too long, the way he played unconsciously with Remus' hair, how he sometimes stared so intensely at Remus in class as if he was burning holes in his back. It was how no girl caught his fancy, why he had snogged a whole string of girls and still felt empty.

It was in the way he looked at Remus when they talked, his eyes softening, the very air between them charged with electricity. It was in the way he listened to Remus when he listened to no one else, even though he grumbled when Remus firmly nixed certain pranks.

It was in the way he slung his arm around Remus sometimes and how they just looked so inexplicably _right_; how he always knew exactly when to cheer Remus up with a bar of Honeydukes chocolate; how he said 'Remy' and 'Moony' the way no one else could, the words at once teasing and yet tender, as if they were endearments and not mere nicknames.

Sirius Black and James Potter were the best of friends, but what he had with Remus was similar and yet so different – it was so much more.

They were two halves of the same puzzle. They were a story awaiting a happy ending. They were the sun revolving around the moon, chasing each other round and round in anguished circles every day.

So James tried to explain. So Peter tried to drop subtle hints that were actually really broad and obvious. And after the hundredth attempt, ever patient Lily shook her head at him and looked exasperated. Remus simply blushed a bright, bright red.

And so it was that everyone knew Sirius Black loved Remus Lupin. Everyone except Sirius Black himself.


	7. Remus x Lily

**Remus x Lily**

"May I sit here?"

Remus jumps, startled out of his reverie. In his three weeks at Hogwarts, no one has talked to him or even asked to sit with him. He stares at the flame-haired girl with the brilliant smile as parchment and books and quills fly out of his hands.

She bends down to pick up his things, and they bump into each other as they rise. Emerald eyes widen, then crinkle into the beginnings of a smile.

"Lily Evans," the girl puts out her hand.

"Remus Lupin," he says politely, and steps forward to take it.

He trips over a book and his too-large shoes, and the next thing he knows, they are both sprawled on the library floor, his worn robes tangled in her brand new ones.

Lily's giggles are infectious.

Remus finds that smiles don't rust.


	8. Neville & Alice

**Neville & Alice**

Until he turns eleven, once a month with clockwork precision, Neville Longbottom wakes from nightmares of shouts and echoing screams, gasping and shuddering, silvery trails of dried tears glinting on his cheeks.

Always, he awaits the last Sunday of the month with a curious mix of trepidation and anticipation.

The corridors of St Mungo's smell of sickness and despair, and they dog his heavy footsteps to a crawl. But each time he steps through the threshold of the ward, he closes his eyes, his heart surging with irrational hope. Maybe today would be different. Maybe his parents would recognize him this time. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, this was just a sick joke or a nasty dream.

Each time he enters, his mother is lying in bed, her eyes closed, pale and still as death and shrunken into herself. Each time, his grandmother pauses to confer with the nurses and healers. Each time, he does not need to look to see the shaking heads and pity-tinged smiles to know: there has been no change, not this time, perhaps ever.

When he was younger he used to burst into tremulous tears. He would refuse to look into the gaunt, uncomprehending faces, and instead dream desperately of warm hugs and tender caresses, light fingers combing through this hair and soft voices singing him to sleep. And each year, his hope shrivels a little more, more weeds of despair having taken root in his heart.

Now he will ball his hands into fists and sticks them into his pockets. Then he will take a deep breath, steel himself and march forward. His mother will smile a watery, faintly puzzled smile when she sees him. He will search blank blue eyes for a glimmer of recognition. He likes to think, sometimes, that there is a flicker, and that they are not as empty as the sea.

They will stay like that, awkwardly, for the duration of the visit. Him staring at her, hopeful and forlorn. Her holding his hand, stroking his arm absently.

When he leaves, she will smile her broken smile and release his hand. Her movements are slow and steady, almost reverential, as she hands him a Drooble's sweet wrapper, as if she is entrusting her heart into his safekeeping. His mind will supply for him the words she does not say: _I know you, son; I love you; I am proud of you_. Beside him, his grandmother will purse her lips and makes a noise of impatience, but he will already be cradling his treasure in his palm, smiling through eyes shining with tears.


End file.
